"Gustáv Husák appointed the first largely non-Communist government in Czechoslovakia since 1948, and resigned. Alexander Dubček was elected speaker of the federal parliament on 28 December and Václav Havel the President of Czechoslovakia on 29 December 1989. In June 1990 Czechoslovakia held its first democratic elections since 1946. On 27 June 1991 the last Soviet troops were withdrawn from Czechoslovakia. In October and November 1989, demonstrations on ecological issues were staged in Sofia, where demands for political reform were also voiced. The demonstrations were suppressed, but on 10 November 1989 (the day after the Berlin Wall was breached) Bulgaria's long-serving"
"Berlin Wall The Berlin Wall (, ) was a guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989. Constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany), starting on 13 August 1961, the Wall cut off (by land) West Berlin from virtually all of surrounding East Germany and East Berlin until government officials opened it in November 1989. Its demolition officially began on 13 June 1990 and finished in 1992. The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, accompanied by a wide area (later known as the ""death strip"") that contained anti-vehicle trenches, ""fakir"
"populated Free Zone. The Berlin Wall was a barrier that divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989, constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off (by land) West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin until it was opened in November 1989. Its demolition officially began on 13 June 1990 and was completed in 1992. The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, which circumscribed a wide area (later known as the ""death strip"") that contained anti-vehicle trenches, ""fakir beds"" and other defenses. The Eastern Bloc claimed"
"136 to more than 200 in and around Berlin. In 1989 a series of revolutions in nearby Eastern Bloc countries—Poland and Hungary in particular—caused a chain reaction in East Germany that ultimately resulted in the demise of the Wall. After several weeks of civil unrest, the East German government announced on 9 November 1989 that all GDR citizens could visit West Germany and West Berlin. Crowds of East Germans crossed and climbed onto the Wall, joined by West Germans on the other side in a celebratory atmosphere. Over the next few weeks, euphoric people and souvenir hunters chipped away parts"
"of West German, British and US guards and soldiers. Despite the extensiveness of the Inner Border, it was the Berlin Wall (German: Berliner Mauer) that would serve as the famous and infamous representation of the ""Iron Curtain"" and the Cold War. The Berlin Wall was a barrier that divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989, constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off (by land) West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin until it was opened in November 1989. In practice, the Wall served to prevent the massive"
"summer of 1989. Also in June 1989, Hungary began dismantling its section of the physical Iron Curtain, leading to an exodus of East Germans through Hungary, which destabilised East Germany. This led to mass demonstrations in cities such as Leipzig and subsequently to the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, which served as the symbolic gateway to German reunification in 1990. The Soviet Union dissolved in December 1991, resulting in eleven new countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan) which had declared their independence from the Soviet Union in the course of"
"and to pass it on to the coming generations as a reminder to stand up for freedom and democracy to ensure that such injustice may never happen again,"" entreated Mayor Wowereit. ""It has been shown once again: Freedom is invincible at the end. No wall can permanently withstand the desire for freedom"", proclaimed President Wulff."" Notes Bibliography Further reading Berlin Wall The Berlin Wall (, ) was a guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989. Constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany), starting on 13 August 1961, the Wall cut off (by"
"hundreds of thousands of vacationing East Germans to flee into Western Europe, it was only possible to get to West Germany by illegally fleeing across heavily fortified and guarded border areas. 44 years after the end of World War II, the Berlin Wall fell on 9 November 1989. The East and West parts of Germany were reunited on 3 October 1990. Economic and social divisions between East and West Germany continue to play a major role in politics and society in Germany at present. It is likely the contrast between the generally well-off and economically diverse West and the weaker,"
"Krenz who was chosen as successor proved to be ineffective, and on 9 November 1989 the Berlin Wall was opened, becoming a symbol of the SED's complete loss of power. Within the first four days of the Wall's opening, 4.3 million people or 25% of the East German population had made the trip across the border to West Germany with many choosing to remain there to take advantage of the higher quality of life. Since 8 November a new Politburo had been in power when the previous one had unanimously resigned. Amongst the new members was former First Secretary of"
"period of Cold War with the Berlin Wall from 1961 and existed until 1989/1990. After the Uprising of 1953 in East Germany, the official holiday in the Federal Republic of Germany was set on 17 June and was named ""Day of German Unity"", in order to remind all Germans of the “open” (unanswered) ""German Question"" (), which meant the call for reunification. Modern Germany's territory, after the reunification of East and West Germany in 1990, is closer to what the envisioned (aside from the fact large areas of the former Prussia were no longer part of Germany) than the ,"
"the Wall was ""breached"" to create a new border crossing between East and West Berlin. The crossing began operating on 11 November 1989, earlier than the iconic Brandenburg Gate crossing which opened more than a month later. The crossing required the dismantling of both the inner and outer walls and the clearance of the ""death zone"" or ""no man's land"" between the two. A temporary road, lined with barriers, was created across this zone and checkpoints were set up just inside East German territory. Proper dismantling of the entire wall began on 15 May 1990 and all border checks were"
"as an illegally constituted NATO puppet state, a line accepted by most of the Eastern bloc. The GDR erected the Berlin Wall in 1961 partly to prevent Germans moving freely within Germany. In 1974, however, the reunification clause was stricken from the GDR's constitution. Thereafter, it regarded itself as a separate state from West Germany. The Communist regime collapsed in the fall of 1989. East Germany lingered on for another year until it declared its accession to the Federal Republic in the German reunification of 1990. Since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949, the Republic of China"
"at the Alexanderplatz demonstration, East Berlin's large public square and transportation hub. The longtime leader of East Germany, Erich Honecker, resigned on 18 October 1989 and was replaced by Egon Krenz that day. Honecker had predicted in January of that year that the Wall would stand for 50 or 100 more years if the conditions that had caused its construction did not change. The wave of refugees leaving East Germany for the West kept increasing. By early November refugees were finding their way to Hungary via Czechoslovakia, or via the West German Embassy in Prague. This was tolerated by the"
"whether permitted or illegal. The breach by demonstrators of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 came towards the end of a year of unprecedented civil unrest, and there was no fraternal support from Moscow for the violent state intervention that had put an end to the country's last major uprising, back in 1953. Instead November 1989 triggered a succession of events which would lead, formally in October 1990, to German reunification. Bemused by the strategic folly of Moscow's evident willingness to see an end to the political division of Europe, and in particular of Germany, in March 1990 Manfred Döring,"
"not, politically, our frontiers. What we must do is to assist these [West European] peoples.” Two years later, he wrote: When it was decided to deploy US divisions to Europe, no one had “for an instant” thought that they would remain there for “several decades”—that the United States could “build a sort of Roman Wall with its own troops and so protect the world.” Eisenhower assured Soviet Chairman Nikita Khrushchev on Berlin in 1959: “Clearly we did not contemplate 50 years in occupation there.” It lasted, remarks Marc Trachtenberg, from July 1945 to September 1994, 10 months short of 50"
"it was blown up and the members of the church hid it from the Soviets until the end of the Cold War. Four years later in 1989, the Wall fell. In the summer of 1990 the removal of the border fortifications began, leaving the land where the Church of Reconciliation had once stood overgrown with grass and shrubs. While the general trend was to get rid of the physical evidence of Berlin’s division, the Reconciliation Parish considered the most suitable use for the site, in a way that commemorated its past whilst looking towards the future. The result was to"
"to look for solutions to their problems with further demonstrations: he was booed. On 9 November 1989 the Berlin Wall was breached. The German Democratic Republic was still hosting approximately 300,000 Soviet troops at this time, and after it became clear that the fraternal troops had no instructions to repress the demonstrations violently, the gate to reunification was seen to have been left open. Johannes Chemnitzer resigned his offices on 10 November and was expelled from The Party on 13 December 1989. Johannes Chemnitzer Hans Chemnitzer (born Wildenfels 24 March 1929) is a former East German national and regional politician."
"in 1961, built the Berlin Wall. Many people attempting to flee were killed by border guards or booby traps, such as landmines. Several others were imprisoned for many years. In 1989, numerous social, economic and political forces in the GDR and abroad led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the establishment of a government committed to liberalisation. The following year, open elections were held, and international negotiations led to the signing of the Final Settlement treaty on the status and borders of Germany. The GDR dissolved itself, and Germany was reunified on 3 October 1990, becoming a fully"
"dividing the capitalist countries from the communist one. A great wall was erected almost two decades later to strengthen the division, literally and figuratively. Built in 1961, the Berlin Wall represented one of the great political, economic, and ideological divides of the twentieth century between two major powers: the United States and the Soviet Union. It was 96 miles in length. The conflict between these two powers affected the global community, namely Germany. Even after it was demolished, the wall symbolized divisions in Germany and the rest of the world, ones that arguably still exist today. Cornell sociologist Christine Leuenberger"
"the physical embodiment of the Iron Curtain that stood between East Germany and West Germany in the decades following the conclusion of World War II. The Berlin Wall stretched approximately 28 miles (45 km) through the city of Berlin and another 75 miles (120 km) around the edges of West Berlin and stood close to 15 feet (5 meters) in height. The sheer physical stature of the Berlin Wall in addition to becoming an iconic, international symbol of the Cold War and its virtues, drove it to become a popular site of tourism throughout its existence, and even after its"
"to symbolize physically the ""Iron Curtain"" that separated Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War. Before the Wall's erection, 3.5 million East Germans circumvented Eastern Bloc emigration restrictions and defected from the GDR, many by crossing over the border from East Berlin into West Berlin; from there they could then travel to West Germany and to other Western European countries. Between 1961 and 1989 the Wall prevented almost all such emigration. During this period over 100,000 people attempted to escape and over 5,000 people succeeded in escaping over the Wall, with an estimated death toll ranging from"
"August 1961. West Berliners gathered on the western side of the gate to demonstrate against the Berlin Wall, among them West Berlin's governing Mayor Willy Brandt, who had spontaneously returned from a federal election campaigning tour in West Germany earlier on the same day. It was closed throughout the Berlin Wall period until 22 December 1989. When the Revolutions of 1989 occurred and the wall was demolished, the gate symbolized freedom and the desire to unify the city of Berlin. Thousands of people gathered at the wall to celebrate its fall on 9 November 1989. On 22 December 1989, the"
"In 1971, after an absence of 17 years, again became a member of the National Legislative Assembly (""Volkskammer""). In 1976 he was placed on the candidate list for membership of the Central Committee Politburo, membership of which followed in 1980. In 1986 he became a member of the Central Committee's powerful ""Cadre Commission"". At the end of 1989 Horst Dohlus's political career fell victim to the rolling demise of the German Democratic Republic. On 9 November 1989 the Berlin Wall was breached. The German Democratic Republic was still hosting approximately 300,000 Soviet troops at this time, but after it became"
"the Berlin Wall in November 1989, and the ensuing evidence that the Soviet leadership had issued no orders to the military for the violent suppression of the burgeoning revolution opened the way for a succession of events that would lead to the demise, as a standalone one-party dictatorship, of the German Democratic Republic and, in October 1990, German reunification. In regional Stasi establishments across the country one feature of the revolutionary phase was a desperate scramble to destroy the paper records that the ministry officers had assiduously and meticulously built up and safeguarded during nearly four decades. Protestors rushed across"
"spanned the years from 1730 to 1916. Until the Peaceful Revolution of 1989, these areas were separated by the Berlin Wall, running between Potsdam and West Berlin, and several historic sites were destructed by 'death strip' border fortifications. Two stages of extension to the World Heritage Site, in 1992 and 1999 led to the incorporation of a larger area. The Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg, which administers the site, puts the area at 2,064 hectare. Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin () are a group of palace complexes and extended landscape"
"Berlin Wall was built and a barbed wire fence with minefields extended the entire north-south length of a divided Germany. The wall effectively isolated East Germany for the next twenty-eight years. But the American, British, and French Zones still remained in Berlin and access to the city was not challenged again. TACK HAMMER and STAIR STEP forces had served their purpose; their rapid deployment to France had unequivocally demonstrated the United States' determination to defend Berlin. Beginning about 1963 due to the Vietnam War, USAFE/NATO's total strength steadily declined, as the U.S. reduced forces in Europe to fight a limited"
"the Berlin Wall, on 9 November 1989, that Christmas Day, when Leonard Bernstein conducted a performance of Beethoven's Ninth at the site of the former East German–West German border in Berlin, a concert telecast nationally in the United States, he substituted ""Freedom"" for ""Joy"" to reflect his own ""personal message"". In February 1952, the United States Customs Service seized the passport of Paul Robeson, preventing him from leaving the United States to travel to the Fourth Canadian Convention of the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; but, after ""The convention heard Robeson sing"
"the few people energetically to defend it. On 10 November 1989, directly after The Wall was breached she took to the political stage, addressing tens of thousands of people at a meeting in the Berlin Lustgarten (pleasure park) on the subject of her faith in Socialism with a human face. During the ensuing months of the run-up to German reunification she placed great faith in Egon Krenz, who briefly served as the East German leader. She lived another ten years and seems never to have regretted or seen the need to apologize for her espionage. Back in 1956, when Nikita"
"to intervene. In 1968 and after, West Berlin became one of the centers of the student revolt; in particular, the Kreuzberg borough was the center of many riots. The Fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 marks the end of the Cold War. On 9 November 1989, border guards allowed crowds from East Berlin to cross the frontier at the Bösebrücke. The guards believed that the authorities had decided to open the wall, but in reality no firm decision was taken and events gathered steam on their own. People of East and West Berlin climbed up and danced on"
"to this level during the lifetime of the German Democratic Republic. From 1986 till 1989 Brünner was a member of the country's powerful National Defense Council, and for approximately the same period, from 1986 till 17 March 1989, he sat as a member of the People's Chamber. Following the events during the closing weeks of 1989, however, on 31 December 1989 Horst Brünner was released from active service, along with his fellow Colonel Generals and Wolfgang Reinhold. On 9 November 1989, as the Berlin Wall came down, and the government spokesman Günter Schabowski announced at a press conference (mistakenly, as"
"victims of Nazi persecution had done more than half a century earlier. The real breakthrough this time came in November 1989, however, when the Berlin Wall was broken open and then crossed by street protestors. At that point it became screamingly obvious that the Soviet forces standing by had received no orders to intervene and rescue the Honecker government. After that, political progress towards a more democratic version of socialism in East Germany became seemingly unstoppable. For many participants in the so-called Peaceful Revolution, combining the socialist ideals that the party had espoused with democratic structures in place of the"
"Germans crossed and climbed onto the wall, joined by West Germans on the other side in a celebratory atmosphere. Over the next few weeks, euphoric people and souvenir hunters chipped away parts of the wall; the governments later used industrial equipment to remove most of what was left. Contrary to popular belief the wall's actual demolition did not begin until the summer of 1990 and was not completed until 1992. The fall of the Berlin Wall paved the way for German reunification, which was formally concluded on 3 October 1990. Separation barrier A separation barrier or separation wall is a"
"1989 1989 was a turning point in political history because a wave of revolutions swept the Eastern Bloc in Europe, starting in Poland and Hungary, with experiments in power sharing, coming to a head with the opening of the Berlin Wall in November, and the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, embracing the overthrow of the communist dictatorship in Romania in December, and ending in December 1991 with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Collectively known as the Revolutions of 1989. It was the year of the first Brazilian presidential elections in 29 years, since the end of the military government in"